Many individuals attempt to follow special diets as a result of health problems, to improve fitness and for weight loss. Most diets are generally based on specific recommendations from nutritional experts. Experts commonly recommend “good” foods and “bad” foods which are to be avoided or consumed in limited quantity. One problem with this type of system is that food lists are finite in nature, while the range of possible food selections is nearly unlimited. Tens of thousands of new food products are introduced to the market each year. Without an effective system for rating foods, dieters have no certain way of evaluating the suitability of available foods for their particular diet and nutritional goals. To overcome this deficiency, some systems have been developed that rate foods based on their nutrient content. These systems typically focus only on total calories or the amount of a single nutrient such as fat or carbohydrates in a food item. The systems lack effectiveness because they ignore dozens of additional nutrients that have a proven impact on health and diet.
Others have developed more complex food rating systems, but such systems generally only focus on a single goal such as weight loss. These systems are more complex and generally, because of their focused nature are ineffective for individuals who have other goals such as weight gain or maximizing health.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,040,531 entitled “Process for Controlling Body Weight” teaches a device independent calculation method for ranking foods. The method considers a limited number of nutrients and is dependent on food serving size. Further, the patent focuses only on weight loss and does not suggest any way of displaying rankings in a spatial orientation.
Another patent in this area, U.S. Pat. No. 5,412,560, teaches a dietary analysis method, but focuses only on the comparison and feedback of total nutrient consumption to government recommendations. Again, this patent does not teach methods of comparing individual foods.
Another system that is used as a meal-planning tool is called The Glycemic Index or GI. Basically the GI is a scale that ranks carbohydrate-rich foods based on the amount they raise blood glucose levels compared to glucose or white bread. Thus, the GI rates carbohydrate-rich foods according to the glycemic response. In general, low GI foods are preferred. GI is helpful in managing blood sugar but, again, focuses on a limited dietary aspect of nutrition.